What is the cause for the sudden increase in price for eggs?

Welcome to the wonderful world of greedy politicians, venal officials, and a Federal Reserve that stinks to high heaven. Brace yourself, ‘cause you ain’t seen nuffin yet! : (

I heard an interview with an egg supplier and he said it was the cost of grain, with more and more grain going to fuel rather than food.

Prices vary but seems a huge increase in such a short time. I mean, okay, they need to increase prices due to costs but let’s be reasonable. from 2.24 to 2.99 it’s an increase for about ¼ and from 1.32 to 1.99 it’s an increase for about ⅓. I understand how other things influence the final cost but it’s just ludacris here. If necessities increase that much I don’t even want to think how the rest things will be influenced.

I have not seen any change in egg prices, including the ones I bought Saturday, since a minor increase last winter.

If you buy eggs at Walmart, you are buying from the mass producer farms, who have been accused at times of colluding. There is also a seasonal increase in September as new layers need to be hatched and brought to production.

You don’t say what part of the country you are in; could it be weather related from heat or floods?

A big chunk of it is feed prices. Corn used to get down to $2 to $3 a bushel. It’s not unusual for it to hit $7 a bushel now. The ethanol tax credits are a big reason why.

It’s not just eggs. My goodness, if you haven’t seen prices increase in the grocery store, you haven’t been to the grocery store. It is crazy. But the answer to your question, @jonsblond, is corn for biofuels, soy beans for China and a weak US dollar. About 4,000 average grocery store products have corn in some shape or fashion in them. Look at the commodity index for corn. Corn is used as feed. I agree with @Adirondackwannabe. We are burning part of our food supply. One-third of our all corn production is used to produce ethanonl and we are just starting to reach the mandated levels. China’s demand for soy beans and stock-building has meant a big change in land use in the US and around the world to meet the demand.

@bkcunningham The saddest part is it takes more energy to produce the corn than the corn produces for energy from the ethanol.

Just to add a little to what’s been said about grain/corn prices, which I would agree, has a lot to do with the price of eggs among many other things. Grain price is being driven up by demand is overshooting supply in no small part because of the midwest and australia droughts and the prediction that increased Russian exports won’t be enough to make up the difference. Combine that with a questionable US winter crop and reserves being spread thinner than people would like and you get increases all around.

If you want more good news on food prices pasta is about to take off. Over 1 million acres of durum wheat couldn’t be planted this past year due to the weather.

Renewable Fuel Standards is another example of the unintended consequenses of a another failed government program. Ethanol has always been more expensive and less efficient. than gasoline. Some researchers have found that ethanol produces higher greenhouse emissions. Crazy. But I suppose many voters in Iowa like the program.

Because they can. I don’t think it is so much the grain and corn, because we have been at 10% biofuel for years now for cars. The price of gas in general is right now is rather high, so it is expensive to transport eggs and everything else, but it has been this price for months. The upside is maybe local growers will gain more and more traction.

More than anything I think they price things higher and see if customers still purchase, if they do, yippie, profit bonanza, if they slow down, they lower the price again. There is no way a sudden increase of such a high amount is simply suddenly their prices increased like crazy. Several years ago when gas first reached the $4 mark pretty much all food prices skyrocketed in the supermarkets, then when gas prices went back down to the $2’s it took about 2 years for the food prices to come all the way back down. During that time they were probably making hand over fist.

Pricing has to do usually with what the market will bear.

Possibly with some of the massive flooding grain crop supplies are very low this year, but I don’t see why that would affect pricing this past week in particular. The flooding was months ago.

If I recall correctly recently due to pressure from animal rights groups the poultry industry agreed to give chickens more free space to roam around in compared to the really bad conditions for them right now. The industry claimed that this would also raise the prices on eggs.

@sinscriven I wish they would make it mandatory for all chickens to be free range and cage free.

@JLeslie : Ditto, also for cows and pigs, but as long as it’s not profitably optimal it won’t happen.

At least there’s local farmers to support!

@sinscriven I theorize the cage free egg farmers probably gouge us though. They charge extremely high prices for their eggs, and I think they do it because the customer who looks for it generally will pay more. I think if they lowered their prices more people would buy them, because I think many many more people want to. Volume sales would give them a strong profit, rather than selling fewer at high prices for the same end money. And, why is it that organic and cage free are never white eggs? Sometimes I prefer a white, rather than brown egg in certain foods. I think that is another deterrent also for the less educated consumer, they are accustomed to white eggs, and brown eggs are odd to them. The transition is too extreme.

I pay attention to the egg cost at my grocer, and I just bought some yesterday for not a penny more than I’ve been paying for the past several months. I shop at Publix if that matters.

I noticed the same thing @jonsblond. Not only eggs, but dairy prices have risen sharply in the past 2 weeks. (At this rate, it’s cheaper to cook with gasoline than with butter). See if you can find a local provider. Eggs are over $2/dozen at the grocery store now, but I can get them from the same farm the grocers use for $1.25/dozen. Now, I just need friends who have dairy cows.

@zenvelo I’m in western Illinois. I literally have corn and soybean fields right outside my doorstep. =) We’ve had a moderate drought this summer, but the crops are doing well. In fact, we’ve noticed many area farmers have been harvesting their corn this past week, much earlier than usual. Not quite sure what’s up with that. Some of the corn is still a bit green.

@bkcunningham It’s not just eggs. My goodness, if you haven’t seen prices increase in the grocery store, you haven’t been to the grocery store.

I’ve noticed a steady increase in many products this past year. Just the past few weeks have been terrible. I shop at least 2 times a week and I’m so tired of doing math in my head when I shop. Can I afford this, can I afford that? ugh

@Blueroses Our family loves dairy products. I was shopping today and noticed the price for cheese rose another $.30 this week. :/ I should look for a local provider for eggs. Great suggestion!

Thanks to everyone who responded. Who knew eggs would give me such an interesting read this evening. I really appreciate your input!

[mod says] This question has been moved to the Social section, at the asker’s request. All moderated posts have been restored.

The average cost for a dozen eggs here in Australia has been 5–6 dollars for a while now. Which is ridiculous now that our dollar is basically equivalent to yours rather than half.

That is ridiculous @shrubbery. Time to build a chicken coop if you like omelets.

I came across a news item last night. The price of corn hit $7.99 a bushel earlier this summer, more than double last year’s high. That’s driving a lot of food prices up.